Jonathan Isham

NBER, MIT, University of Maryland, and the AEA Meetings. The authors owe special thanks to Ajay Chhibber, (2007)

Jonathan Isham, Daniel Kaufmann, Angus Deaton, Paul Duane, Eduardo Engel, Stanley Fischer, ...

Using economic rates of return from World Bank-funded investments, we investigate how country characteristics and policies that influence aggregate performance affect investment productivity....

The Varieties of Resource Experience: Natural Resource Export Structures and the Political Economy of Economic Growth (2005)

Isham, Jonathan, Woolcock, Michael, Pritchett, Lant, Busby, Gwen

Many oil, mineral, and plantation crop-based economies experienced a substantial deceleration in growth following the commodity boom and bust of the 1970s and early 1980s. This article illustrates...

The Varieties of Resource Experience: Natural Resource Export Structures and the Political Economy of Economic Growth (2005)

Isham, Jonathan, Woolcock, Michael, Pritchett, Lant, Busby, Gwen

Many oil, mineral, and plantation crop–based economies experienced a substantial deceleration in growth following the commodity boom and bust of the 1970s and early 1980s. This article illustrates...

Civil Liberties, Democracy, and the Performance of Government Projects (1997)

Isham, Jonathan, Kaufmann, Daniel, Pritchett, Lant H.

This article uses a cross-national data set on the performance of government investment projects financed by the World Bank to examine the link between government efficacy and governance. It...

Does Participation Improve Performance? Establishing Causality with Subjective Data (1995)

Isham, Jonathan, Narayan, Deepa, Pritchett, Lant

Data from 121 diverse rural water projects provide strong statistical findings that increasing beneficiary participation directly causes better project outcomes. Three possible econometric objections...

Social Capital and Consumption among Agricultural Households

Jonathan Isham

This paper develops a life cycle model for agricultural households in which social capital is a fixed input into household production. The intertemporal solutions of the model yield four results that...

Should we Bet on Private or Public Water Utilities in Cambodia? Evidence on Incentives and Performace from Seven Provincial Towns

Mike Garn, Jonathan Isham, Satu Kahkonen

Is public or private sector provision of water more likely to succeed in urban areas of Cambodia? Using quantitative and qualitative data from a range of surveys and technical assessments, this paper...

Institutional Determinants of the Impact Community-Based Water Services: Evidence from Sri Lanka and India

Jonathan Isham, Satu Kahkonen

Using data from community-based water services in Sri Lanka and India, this paper shows first that: (a) improved household health and reduced water collection times are associated with better service...

The Effect of Social Capital on Fertilizer Adoption: Evidence from Rural Tanzania

Jonathan Isham

Do the characterisitics of local social structures affect fertilizer adoption among rural households? This paper extends the model of technology adoption of Feder and Slade (1984) to incorporate...

Overcoming Information Asymmetries in Low-Income Lending: Lessons from the 'Working Wheels' Program

Jessica Holmes, Jonathan Isham, Jessica Wasilewski

Without access to reliable transportation, the welfare-to-work transition for low-income households is nearly impossible, yet very little is known about the effectiveness of targeted loan programs...

Overcoming Information Asymmetries in Low-Income Lending: Lessons from the "Working Wheels" Program

Jessica Holmes, Jonathan Isham, Jessica Wasilewski

This study analyzes the role of relationship lending in the automobile credit market among a population generally perceived to be high risk - and thereby 'unlendable'. Using a unique dataset from the...

The Effects of Volunteering for Non-profit Organizations on Social Capital Formation: Evidence from a Statewide Survey

Jane Kolodinsky, Garret Kimberly, Jonathan Isham

We use the household production framework to theoretically connect sociability and purposive incentives for volunteering and two forms of social capital: social connections and civic capacity. Then,...

Effects of Volunteering for Nonprofit Organizations on Social Capital Formation: Evidence from a Statewide Survey

Jane Kolodinsky, Garret Kimberly, Jonathan Isham

As membership in traditional civic organizations declines in the United States (Putnam, 2000), could volunteering for nonprofit organizations be an alternative source of social capital formation? We...

The Greening of Social Capital: An Examination of Land-Based Groups in Two Vermont Counties

Andrew Savage, Christopher McGrory Klyza, Jonathan Isham

By undertaking a census of all agricultural, outdoor recreational, and environmental groups (land-based groups) in two adjacent counties in Vermont, we demonstrate the dramatic increase of local...

The Varieties of Resource Experience: How Natural Resource Export Structures Affect the Political Economy of Economic Growth

Jonathan Isham, Michael Woolcock, Lant Pritchett, Gwen Busby

Many oil, mineral, and plantation crop-based economies experienced a substantial deceleration of growth since the commodity boom and bust of the 1970s and early 1980s. Rodrik (1999) has demonstrated...

The Varieties of Resource Experience: How Natural Resource Export Structures Affect the Political Economy of Economic Growth

Lant Pritchett, Michael Woolcock, Gwen Busby, Jonathan Isham

Many oil, mineral, and plantation crop-based economies experienced a substantial deceleration of growth since the commodity boom and bust of the 1970s and early 1980s. Rodrik (1999) has demonstrated...

Local Environmental Groups, the Creation of Social Capital, and Environmental Policy: Evidence from Vermont

Christopher McGrory Klyza, Andrew Savage, Jonathan Isham

Many scholars have documented the important role of national environmental groups in affecting environmental policies in the United States. The role of local environmental groups, however, has not...

Water Demand and the Welfare Effects of Connection: Empirical Evidence from Cambodia

Marcello Basani, Barry Reilly, Jonathan Isham

Using cross-sectional household-level data from seven provincial Cambodian towns, we estimate a water demand equation for households connected to the network, and provide an empirical measurement of...

Does Relationship Lending Still Matter in the Consumer Banking Sector? Evidence from Two Financial Service Organizations in Vermont

Jessica Holmes, Jonathan Isham, Ryan Petersen, Paul Sommers

We use actual loan applications submitted to a community development credit union (CDCU) and a traditional community bank to examine the role of relationship lending in the automobile loan market. We...

Local Environmental Groups, the Creation of Social Capital, and Environmental Policy: Evidence from Vermont

Christopher McGrory Klyza, Andrew Savage, Jonathan Isham

Scholars who have studied local environmental groups and their effects in the United States have tended to agree about three related, stylized facts: that such groups are widespread, that they are...

The Varieties of Resource Experience: Natural Resource Export Structures and the Political Economy of Economic Growth

Jonathan Isham, Michael Woolcock, Lant Pritchett, Gwen Busby

Many oil, mineral, and plantation crop--based economies experienced a substantial deceleration in growth following the commodity boom and bust of the 1970s and early 1980s. This article illustrates...

The forgotten rationale for policy reform : the productivity of investment projects

Isham, Jonathan, Kaufmann,Daniel

Using economic rates of return from more than 1,200 public and private sector projects implemented in 61 developing countries, the authors analyze determinants of investment productivity. Results...

Governance and returns on investment : an empirical investigation

Isham, Jonathan, Kaufmann, Daniel, Pritchett, Lant

Using data from the World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department, the authors examine the link between the performance of Bank-financed projects and various indicators of country governance. They...

Does participation improve project performance : establishing causality with subjective data

Isham, Jonathan, Narayan, Deepa, Pritchett, Lant

Development practitioners are coming to a consensus that participation by the intended beneficiaries improves project performance. But is there convincing evidence that this is true? Skeptics have...

Does Relationship Lending Still Matter in the Consumer Banking Sector? Evidence from the Automobile Loan Market

Jessica Holmes, Jonathan Isham, Ryan Petersen, Paul M. Sommers

This article examines the role of relationship lending in the automobile loan market at a community development credit union (CDCU) and at a traditional community bank. Copyright (c) 2007...

The Forgotten Rationale For Policy Reform: The Productivity Of Investment Projects

Jonathan Isham, Daniel Kaufmann

Using economic rates of return from World Bank-funded investments, we investigate how country characteristics and policies that influence aggregate performance affect investment productivity....

Civil Liberties, Democracy, and the Performance of Government Projects.

Isham, Jonathan, Kaufmann, Daniel, Pritchett, Lant H

This article uses a cross-national data set on the performance of government investment projects financed by the World Bank to examine the link between government efficacy and governance. It...

Does Participation Improve Performance? Establishing Causality with Subjective Data.

Isham, Jonathan, Narayan, Deepa, Pritchett, Lant

Data from 121 diverse rural water projects provide strong statistical findings that increasing beneficiary participation directly causes better project outcomes. Three possible econometric objections...

The Effect of Social Capital on Fertiliser Adoption: Evidence from Rural Tanzania

Jonathan Isham

Do the characteristics of local social structures affect fertiliser adoption among rural households? This paper extends the model of technology adoption of Feder and Slade (1984) to incorporate...

Overcoming Information Asymmetries in Low-Income Lending: Lessons from the “Working Wheels” Program

Jessica Holmes, Jonathan Isham, Jessica Wasilewski

Without access to transportation, the welfare-to-work transition is nearly impossible, yet little is known about the effectiveness of programs designed to improve credit access. Since 1998, Vermont's...

The Determinants of Water Connection and Water Consumption: Empirical Evidence from a Cambodian Household Survey

Basani, Marcello, Isham, Jonathan, Reilly, Barry

Summary Using cross-sectional household-level data from seven provincial towns and one district in Cambodia, we estimate both an access-to-water network equation and a water demand equation. We find...